Longtime Firefighter Recalls Early Days

When Donald Petges became a paid-on-call firefighter in April, 1957, Bloomingdale Fire Protection District No. 1 was very different from what it is today-but then Bloomingdale also was very different.

The population of the town, where he and his wife, Kay, live, was about 300, and the area was largely farmland, Petges says.

As farms gave way to new homes, industrial parks and malls, the fire district`s scope increased. Chief Richard Randecker estimates the district now protects 25,000 to 30,000 people in Bloomingdale, Glendale Heights and unincorporated areas surrounding Bloomingdale. (The district covers parts of Glendale Heights not covered by the Glenside Fire Protection District.)

The district was 100 percent paid-on-call until 1969, when the first full-time firefighter was hired. Today, there are 23 full-time and 13 paid-on- call firefighters, Randecker says.

The only ambulance in the area 30 years ago belonged to the undertaker, who ran an ambulance service on the side, Petges says. It often took 30 to 45 minutes to get help at night partly because it meant getting an ambulance driver out of bed, he says.

Today there are three ambulances and 14 full-time and 1 paid-on-call paramedics.

A 32-year veteran, Petges, 53, is the longest-serving firefighter in the district. He signed on the month he returned from military service in Korea.

His late father, Louis, was a paid-on-call firefighter, first in Roselle and then in Bloomingdale when the family moved there in 1947. He also was a member of the committee that built the existing fire district. Petges remembers the sound of fire siren and his father going to calls at night. ``It got in my blood,`` he says, and he wanted to follow in his father`s footsteps. In those days, the fire siren was the only means of contacting paid-on-call firefighters, and it wailed day or night in an emergency. Three people rotated responsibility for answering emergency calls on ``fire phones.``

Petges` mother, Dorothy, became an early paid-on-call dispatcher after one of the phones was moved into her house from a local tavern when it was sold. (One of the others was in the fire chief`s house; no one can remember where the third was located.)

Volunteers still listen for the fire siren during the day. It is now turned off at night and has been largely supplanted by beepers, Randecker says.

Petges` father remained a paid-on-call firefighter all his life, and it turned into a family calling. Petges` brother Tom is a full-time firefighter for the Bloomingdale Fire Protection District; another brother Bill is paid-on-call for the Roselle Fire Department, which is part of the Roselle Fire Protection District No. 1.

Petges` oldest son, Jay, 25, is talking about taking the family`s firefighting tradition into a third generation by becoming a paid-on-call firefighter in Glendale Heights, where he lives, for the Glenside Fire Protection District.

In 1957, Bloomingdale had two fire trucks and an old tanker that could be used only in summer because it wouldn`t run in the winter, Petges says. The district got its first ambulance in 1974. Paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians, who are also firefighters, were added in the late 1970s.

The Bloomingdale Fire Protection District has three advanced life-support ambulances; three fire engines; a ladder truck; a tanker; a brush truck, which is designed to extinguish grass fires; and assorted other vehicles at two fire stations. One is at 108 W. Washington St. in Bloomingdale, and the other is in Keeneyville, one of the unincorporated towns covered by the district.

When Petges first started, the town had about 12 calls a year, he says. In 1988, the district answered 3,017 calls, up only 1.4 percent from 1987. About half were for fire-related calls and the other half for ambulance calls, Randecker says.

The period between January and September, 1988, shows a typical breakdown of calls: 51 percent were false calls, 15 percent were for building fires, 13 percent rescue calls (such as drowning) for a fire engine or ambulance, and 7 percent to contain hazardous spills.

Four radio operators (one also is the district secretary), an assistant chief and one inspector are also part of the staff.

The district has a Class 6 insurance rating in the village of Bloomingdale and a Class 9 for most unincorporated areas, burt Class 8 within 1,000 feet of a fire hydrant, the chief says. Ratings, which range from 1 to 10 (1 being the best) measure water supply and how fast a call is answered, among other things.

The district has mutual aid agreements with the surrounding suburbs. Community services include free blood pressure testing and school group tours of the main fire station and an annual Christmas party held at a park district facility for the needy.